


Grey Stone and Scorched Earth

by Mairyn



Series: Grey Stone and Scorched Earth [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 18:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mairyn/pseuds/Mairyn
Summary: “Pray do not think word of your deeds across Coerthas have not reached mine ears,” Haurchefant said. “You saved Francel, ‘tis true. An act I shall ever consider a deeply personal favor. But you’ve done far more than that for the knights who call this place home. Lord Drillemont has called on you some dozen times, and each you've answered the call without hesitation. You drove Iceheart from her lair, and when she called down the bloody fires of Nidhogg’s horde upon the Steps of Faith, you were there to defend us without a thought for your own life.” Haurchefant turned around, then, eyes nigh sparkling with admiration. “You are a marvel, my friend, and ‘tis plain for all to see. To risk harboring you is but a trifle compared with the good this world might lose were you to be taken from it.”
Relationships: Haurchefant Greystone/Warrior of Light
Series: Grey Stone and Scorched Earth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159055
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Grey Stone and Scorched Earth

On their second day in the Falling Snows, a harsh snow storm blew through Coerthas. The largely Ishgardian population of the camp thought nothing of it. They closed their shutters to preserve warmth and burned more firewood than usual, but otherwise went about their days as they ever had, unphased by the whistling winds and inhospitable cold. In the days since the Calamity, Bram learned, Coerthas had transformed from a lush, mountainous landscape of babbling brooks and rolling greens to a hellish frostscape suspended in eternal winter. The odd snowstorm barely registered by comparison.

To Bram, however, the sight was nothing short of a marvel. Though it had often snowed in Yanxia during the winter, it never arrived in such abundance. Coerthas was otherworldly by comparison: a cruel and frigid wasteland to be sure, but one of subtle beauty. He spent nearly the entire day by the window in his quarters, watching the snowfall and worrying after the fate of his companions in the aftermath of the Sultana’s banquet. The steadily accumulating frost made a fine companion.

Though he’d long suspected something wasn’t quite right with the Crystal Braves, he hadn’t anticipated such a far reaching and total betrayal. Alphinaud, of course, was devastated. Bram hadn’t seen the boy for more than a moment at a time since the night prior. Though he’d put on a brave face then, resolving not to let the Scions’ good deeds go to waste, Bram knew it wasn’t so simple to overcome such a grand and precise blow to his pride. Save for Tataru, every last member of the Scions was either dead or missing and it might easily be considered Alphinaud’s fault. Bram had no doubt he’d be seeing a very different version of the boy in the days to come.

Truth be told, however, Bram felt like a different person as well. Though Mina was blessedly alive and on her way to join them in Coerthas, the fate of the others was as grand a mystery as he could imagine. Try as he might, he couldn’t justify a scenario in which all of them lived. He’d seen the swarm of Blades and Braves Yda and Papalymo resolved to fight alone. He’d heard the explosion accompanying Thancred and Y’shtola’s diversion. Even Minfilia, who’d simply run away, propelled by the will of Hydaelyn, couldn’t possibly have survived an encounter with the enemy if indeed they’d outlasted the efforts of all the others. But even so, he had no proof. The uncertainty was the worst part by far.

Nanamo, though… The image of that moment yet lingered in his mind, a constant torment. Lips tinged blue, red wine soaking into the carpet. The way she’d choked and gasped and clawed at her throat. That damnable glass vial he’d picked up without a second thought. The accusations of treason. The wild-eyed rage in Raubahn’s expression as he’d sundered Teledji with but a single blow. His mind had sifted through the details a thousand times, searching for any way he might have prevented it. But he found nothing. The Sultana was dead, and he’d watched it happen, powerless to do otherwise.

A knock on his door startled him out of his reverie and set his heart apace. He knew it wasn’t the Syndicate, as he’d heard no fighting or shouting. But his fear response was instantaneous nonetheless. He forced himself up out of his chair. His limbs were stiff from having sat lost in thought for so many hours. After taking a deep breath to calm himself, he opened the door. Haurchefant smiled kindly on the other side.

“Hello, my friend,” he said gently, a quieter version of his usual larger-than-life persona.

Bram managed an admittedly empty smile in return. “Hello.”

“I wanted to ensure you were staying warm,” Haruchefant said. “I understand how inhospitable our weather can be to those unused to such climates.” A flimsy excuse to check on him, Bram knew, but he humored the elezen all the same. “May I come in?”

Bram stepped aside, giving him free access to the room. It was a modest space, just large enough to house a single bed, small wood stove, a table big enough for two people, and a pair of chairs. Though the shutters were open so Bram could gaze out over the landscape, the room had more or less maintained a comfortable temperature. It was smaller than an inn room, but blessedly private. In the end, enough room to think and plot his next move was all he truly needed. Haurchefant crossed the room in three strides and stopped at the window.

“I see you’ve been enjoying the landscape,” he noted. No chastising about maintaining warmth. Bram was grateful for that. “It’s beautiful like this, when the snows are undisturbed. I hope you’ll grow used to it, after a time.”

“I’m unsure I’ll be given a choice,” Bram commented, perhaps cruelly. The words tasted bitter in his mouth. Haurchefant turned his gaze from the landscape to look back at him and Bram felt suddenly embarrassed. “I apologize, it’s been… a long night.”

“No apologies needed,” Haurchefant assured him. The expression on his face was one of empathy and understanding, smile soft and eyes a bit crinkled at the corners. “You’ve found yourself in an unenviable position.” The elezen looked past Bram for a moment, as if lost in thought. “Though an enemy seems to lie around every corner, I hope you understand that you are safe here for the time being. When the snows have abated, you are free to roam the Central Highlands as you see fit, and when the time comes I’ll reach out to my father and see if perhaps I can’t gain you access to the city proper.”

An impossible act of kindness from an impossibly kind man. Bram quietly wondered at Haurchefant’s willingness to help them, when all others seemed to have turned them away. He’d helped Francel, it was true, and rooted out the source of the inquisitor's deception. But even that seemed but a trifle in comparison to harboring a wanted man and his companions. If Haurchefant was caught, doubtless he would be implicated.

“I am grateful for your help,” Bram said, “But…”

“But?” Haurchefant asked, ever open and earnest, “Please don’t hesitate to speak freely.”

 _Why?_ Bram thought again. It was as though his mind simply couldn’t wrap around the idea, though it seemed simple. Perhaps his own self-preservation instincts were simply too powerful to see the situation from Haurchefant’s perspective, but it all seemed a fool’s errand. The Syndicate would come knocking soon enough, be it in days or weeks. And at that moment, the lives of Haurchefant and his knights would be in danger.

“Why risk being implicated in order to help us?” Bram asked at last. “Do you really think so highly of the Scions that you’d risk life and limb in order to harbor us in secrecy?”

“Not the Scions,” Haurchefant shook his head, meeting his gaze head-on, without an onze of hesitation. “You.”

Bram felt his face flood with color, embarrassed by the sudden heaping of praise. He stammered, “I’m not--”

Haurchefant laughed and turned his gaze back to the window. The snow yet fell in thick white sheets, obscuring the view which would normally face the Steps of Faith. He murmured, “You are too humble by far.”

Bram crossed the room and took a seat in the chair nearest to the wood stove, watching Haurchefant carefully. He wasn’t certain how to proceed with this conversation. Where it might lead.

“Pray do not think word of your deeds across Coerthas have not reached mine ears,” Haurchefant said. “You saved Francel, ‘tis true. An act I shall ever consider a deeply personal favor. But you’ve done far more than that for the knights who call this place home. Lord Drillemont has called on you some dozen times, and each you've answered the call without hesitation. You drove Iceheart from her lair, and when she called down the bloody fires of Nidhogg’s horde upon the Steps of Faith, you were there to defend us without a thought for your own life.” Haurchefant turned around, then, eyes nigh sparkling with admiration. “You are a marvel, my friend, and ‘tis plain for all to see. To risk harboring you is but a trifle compared with the good this world might lose were you to be taken from it.”

If Bram had flushed at Haurchefant’s previous praise he’d now gone red as Dalamud itself, unable to respond for fear of embarrassing himself further. He hadn’t realized how deeply the elezen admired him. It was a continued failing of his, stalking him at every turn. Those around him seemed to believe him a savior, yet he failed to see himself as one. But perhaps… Perhaps one day he might find room for that belief yet.

“Thank you,” he managed at last, unable to look Haurchefant in the eyes. “I hope I can continue to live up to those words in the times to come.”

“I’ve little doubt you will,” Haurchefant said with absolute certainty. He started towards the door. “Please stay warm, Bram. And try not to dwell on the struggles of the day. All shall resolve itself in time.”

“I’ll do my best,” Bram said with a nod, unable to remember if this was the first time Haurchefant had used his name. The elezen’s words acted as a balm of sorts, soothing his concerns for the time being. “Thank you, Lord Haurchefant.”

“You needn’t use my title,” Haurchefant waved a hand. “I hope in the days to follow we shall become steadfast friends.”

“Aye,” Bram agreed, and found he liked the sound of it.

Haurchefant smiled and made his way through the door, Bram’s eyes following him all the way. He paused for a moment where he stood in the frame. “Pray seek me out at dinner,” he said, without turning around. “Mayhaps we can learn more of one another then.”

Bram nodded and Haurchefant left, closing the door behind him. After a moment alone, Bram exhaled a long breath.

* * *

Mina arrived the next day, bundled in two coats and looking pissed as a wet cat. Though Bram was relieved to see her well, she looked nothing short of infuriated with him, and he braced himself for the verbal lashing he was certain to receive. She stepped off the chocobo carriage just outside Haurchefant’s office and scowled. The snow nigh came up to her knees. She stomped in place in an effort to keep warm.

“You go into hiding and the best you can come up with on short notice is this frozen hellscape?” she hissed. “My feet are like to fall off any second!”

“Glad to see you yet live,” Bram said, rolling his eyes and ignoring her fury. “Would I could have set us up in a bungalow along Costa del Sol, but being accused of treason isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Treason!” Mina shouted, and the word rang throughout the camp. Bram glared daggers and she lowered her voice significantly. “What in the name of the Twelve happened, Bram?”

Bram ushered her up the icy steps to the tower where their rooms were located. His boots offered little traction against the ice. He’d need to come up with more suitable garments if they’d be staying in Coerthas for the foreseeable future. Once inside, the warmth flooded them in an instant. Mina sighed in relief, and it was only by torchlight that Bram noticed how unnaturally red her cheeks were with the cold.

“We’re upstairs,” he instructed. She climbed the winding staircase eagerly, then pressed through each door Bram pointed out. When at last they’d made their way to what would be Mina’s room for the time being, she immediately set about lighting the wood stove, still wrapped in her coats.

Bram took a seat on her bed and rubbed his nose, fingertips catching on the line of his scar. If nothing else, at least his nuisance of a little sister yet lived. When at last the flames in the stove had roared to life, she took a seat in the chair near her bed.

“Well?” she asked impatiently.

Bram launched into explaining the entirety of the banquet. The sultana’s death. The Braves’ betrayal. Raubahn’s arm. Mina listened, rapt and unusually silent, resting a fearful hand against her lips when Bram detailed the escape through the waterway and the fact that the Scions might all--every last one of them--very well be dead. They’d been her companions, too. Yda in particular had made fast friends with Mina. More and more frequently during their days as Scions, he’d returned to the Rising Stones to find them in the midst of a heated match of Triple Triad, or swapping light-hearted gossip about Bram and Thancred while their backs were turned.

Once again, their home had been ripped away from them. As he often did, Bram recalled sitting with his sister in the aftermath of the uprising that had killed their mother. His face bruised and swollen, stitched from one eyebrow down to his jaw, he’d grabbed her hand and promised her that they’d leave Yanxia and find something better, one day. All the hurt, all the misery they’d endured at the hands of the empire would end. He’d nearly begun to believe he’d achieved it. Until now.

Now they sat here, more embroiled than ever before. Guilt swept over him, suffocating him. But Mina’s frustrations had visibly softened.

When he finished, she stared at him in a long silence, then looked down at her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry, Bram. I--” She breathed in deeply. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Alphinaud and Tataru are here as well,” he told her. “Hopefully we’ll learn more of the others in the days to come.”

“Alphinaud…” Mina shook her head. “I knew that self-congratulatory little brat would get his comeuppance one day, but I never thought… I never wanted…” Mina looked up and her expression betrayed her feelings of guilt. She’d never been Alphinaud’s biggest fan, it was true. But she was hardly so evil as to wish he would fail. “Is he alright?”

“I think he will be, eventually,” Bram said. “But no, he isn’t right now.” He looked Mina in the eyes, deeply serious for a moment. “Go easy on him. He made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean he needs to relive it again and again.”

Mina nodded, silently. The room had finally begun to warm. The shutters on Mina’s window were pulled shut, but a torch kept the room fairly well lit. His sister shrugged off one of her coats, shrinking by half in size as she laid the bulky garment on the table beside her. “How long will we be here?”

It was a question Bram hadn’t dared to think over at length. It would take weeks at minimum, if not moons to clear their names. And he hadn’t the foggiest in regards to how he’d go about it. He was innocent and that had to count for something. But the puppeteering hands of the Syndicate weren’t so easily combatted. The people of Ul’dah had adored their Sultana. Her killer would be reviled as one of the great villains in history for centuries to come.

“I don’t know,” Bram said honestly. “Until we clear our names. Or until Haurchefant tires of hospitality.”

“He won’t tire,” Mina said plainly. “We may struggle to clear our names. But Lord Haurchefant will be with us every step of the way.”

“How can you be sure?” Bram asked. He pulled one leg up on the bed, resting the sole of his boot against his inner thigh. His sister drew a face, and he knew she was lamenting him wearing shoes on her bed.

Mina deadpanned. “The man adores you. It’s been obvious from the first. You should’ve seen the way he shouted and fought to try and rush in after you when you went to fight Shiva. He’d nigh gone blind with the need to protect you.”

Bram felt his face flush again, surprised by his sister’s words. He hadn’t known that. Their discussion yesterday had alerted him to Haurchefant’s blind loyalty, certainty. But all loyalties had a limit. This, though… This was a brand of loyalty with which he’d never contended.

“Maybe you’re right,” he murmured.

“I am,” Mina said, in that eternally annoying way of hers. “Now get your boots off my bed you boar.”

Bram rolled his eyes and dropped his foot back to the floor, wiping the stray flecks of dirt from her quilt. Despite the direness of their situation, at least they both yet lived. For now, that had to be enough.

* * *

Haurchefant stretched languidly, his office gone silent for the evening. He’d released the majority of his knights from duty for the evening two or three bells prior, but yet remained at his desk answering letters. They’d begun to arrive in abundance since the Scions’ arrival and showed no sign of stopping. Letters from home, warning of dangerous fugitives. Letters from the Eorzean alliance, seeking aid from the knights of House Fortemps in the difficult days to come. Letters from the Syndicate, seeking entrance to Coerthas so that they might more freely seek out their prey. He answered each with the respect it was due, writing for hours. He denied the Syndicate’s request politely but firmly, making certain to show no sign of allegiance. By the time he’d finished, his hand cramped and his teapot was emptied to the very dregs.

He stood and yawned, and made his way over to the fire, to snuff it out for the evening. The room dimmed significantly, the war table in the center of the space reduced to a shadowy silhouette. He stepped outside. The Coerthan chill rushed at him all at once, but he’d long since grown used to the cold. Though he missed the greens of the landscape pre-Calamity, the snow held its own charms. He often felt like to the adventurers he so admired while traveling through it, hood drawn against the biting winds, blade at his hip.

Haurchefant climbed the steps that led up to the aetheryte and then headed for the battlements. He’d chosen to house the Scions in the same tower of the Camp as his own quarters, so that he would be immediately present should anything go awry in the dead of night. Nothing had yet happened, but he knew their peaceful existence could not last forever. Sooner or later Bram and his companions would be snuffed out and they’d have a battle on their hands.

Haurchefant sighed, thinking of the man who now slept but a single floor below him each night. Bram: a shining beacon of hope for all Eorzea. It wounded him to see the hyur so downtrodden in the aftermath of the Sultana’s death, though he could hardly fault him for being so. The scale of the betrayal he’d endured was unimaginable. He wished he could simply wipe the man’s record clean. Wished he could face the Syndicate himself and expose the truth. But he couldn’t. Some hurts, unfortunately, simply couldn’t be healed.

As Haurchefant walked through one tower and out the other side, onto another stretch of battlements, he was surprised to find the man himself directly within his line of sight. Bram had knocked the snow off one of the ramparts and was sitting atop it, gazing out into the clear Coerthan night towards the Steps of Faith. He seemed lost in thought, so Haurchefant tried his best to be obvious about his presence, clearing his throat gently.

Bram looked back over his shoulder at him and Haurchefant’s stomach fluttered just a bit at the sight. He was beautiful in the pale moonlight, though his expression looked heartbreakingly morose. Haurchefant stepped forward to join him, leaning his hip against the next rampart over.

“Are you alright?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“Aye,” Bram said quietly. “I just wanted some air.”

“Do you mind if I join you?” Haurchefant asked, leaving the choice in Bram’s hands. He wouldn’t intrude if he wished to be alone, but he could hardly bear to see it happen. “I’ve an ear to offer, if you’d like.”

Bram smiled and looked down at his knees a moment. A gust of frigid wind whipped past, but Bram hardly seemed to register the fact. He simply buried his hands in his pockets. “I’m just dwelling on the past. Feeling guilty, I suppose.”

The admission caught Haurchefant off-guard. Bram wasn’t usually so open with his thoughts. Too often it seemed he was the type to keep them locked away, so that no one else might be affected by them. But the Warrior of Light had ever been the selfless sort, or so it seemed. No doubt he feared imposing on others more than anything else. Grateful for his sliver of trust, Haurchefant simply asked, “Why so?”

“I feel like I’ve failed Mina again,” Bram admitted. Haurchefant hadn’t yet asked after Bram’s sister, though he’d met her a time or two and knew she’d arrived earlier that day. He supposed the young woman was taking the potential loss of her comrades just as hard as her brother was. “Eorzea was meant to be our new home and now we’re considered traitors.” He shook his head. “I sometimes wonder if we wouldn’t have been better off just suffering the imperial occupation in Yanxia.”

Haurchefant frowned at that, uncertain what to say. He’d had no idea Bram was from Yanxia, beyond his similar appearance to that of the few Domans he’d encountered. His name, his countenance, even his accent all screamed Eorzean, through and through. Haurchefant assumed that couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. Like as not, it was probably a carefully constructed facade, to separate him from his past.

He understood well feeling like an outsider in one’s own home. Being born the bastard son to a High House of Ishgard presented unique challenges all their own, not the least of which was unending scrutiny. He’d dealt with it by building a purpose outside the city walls. His knights and his father respected him. That was enough. Having been forced from two homes, however, was beyond his capacity. He might sympathize all he liked, but he knew he would never truly understand such deep seated pain.

“I had no idea you’d traveled so far,” Haurchefant confessed. “I can’t imagine it’s been easy.”

Bram snorted, his mood suddenly seeming to sour. “We were born under imperial occupation. My father was a Garlean soldier and my mother was killed by his countrymen. I worked for a decade to secure us passage to Eorzea, built us a life here alongside the Scions. For once, I thought everything had fallen into place. And now this.”

A cruel and unforgiving life, indeed. Haurchefant longed to reach out and touch Bram’s shoulder, to pat it gently and ensure him that this, too, would pass. But he knew they weren’t yet at the level of familiarity where such a gesture would be received comfortably. He drew in a breath of frigid air and folded his arms across his chest to maintain warmth. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted. Haurchefant opted, instead, for sincerity.

“You’ve led a difficult life,” Haurchefant began, “but you’ve triumphed over every challenge you’ve encountered thus far.” He smiled at Bram, and Bram stared back at him with uncertain eyes. “This is but another trial, my friend, and I swear I will help you find the means to overcome it.”

Bram’s lips parted for a moment, and Haurchefant watched him shift where he sat. He wasn’t certain how to answer. Haurchefant chastised himself for perhaps being overly-familiar once again. But Bram had a way of bringing it out of him. He was the sort of kind-hearted, well-traveled person who drew Haurchefant in with impossible immediacy. He had never been good at conveying his affections with subtlety.

“I appreciate that,” he said at last. Haurchefant could tell he meant it.

A comfortable silence drifted between them. The owl hooted again, and they watched a lone karakul (likely lost) wander down the path below, its stark black fur in sharp contrast against the white snow. The Steps of Faith loomed.

“What’s your family like?” Bram asked suddenly. When Haurchefant looked surprised, Bram held up his hands and backpedaled, seemingly embarrassed by his own forwardness. “If you don’t mind talking about them, I mean. You don’t have to.”

“With you, no topic is off-limits,” Haurchefant assured him. Bram’s embarrassed flush deepened. Haurchefant took a seat on the rampart next to Bram, leaving a comfortable space between them, and began to speak. “I am my father’s lone bastard son,” he’d grown used to starting with the hard part. The admission caught Bram off-guard, but Haurchefant assumed it was only fair that he reveal his own parentage given Bram’s confession not moments earlier. “My mother was a serving girl in his household. Following the birth of his firstborn, my eldest half-brother, he succumbed to indiscretion but once. All the same, that was enough to create me.” Haruchefant smiled a bit shyly, remembering the way servants in his household gossiped about him while his back was turned. He’d grown used to it after a time. “It caused quite the stir, of course. The other noblemen discredit him for it even now. But my father has ever been an upstanding and gracious man. My mother allowed him to take me in and raise me as his own, despite the controversy, because she knew my life with him would be better than any life she could give me, herself.” He frowned, remembering his mother’s pale face and thinning hair as she lay dying in hospice. “She succumbed to an illness when I was still a boy. My youngest half-brother, Emmanalain, came along not long after.”

“Was it difficult?” Bram asked. “I know each country has its own prejudices, but I know little of Ishgard. Were people cruel?”

“At times,” Haurchefant admitted. “As I said, many of the other noblemen have never let my father forget, though he’s ever done what he can to protect me. There were whisperings and scornful looks as I grew older, but I became used to them after a time.” Bram frowned. “I know it sounds tragic, but it scarcely bothered me after a time. I resolved to become someone my mother and father could feel proud of. Little else mattered.”

“I can understand that,” Bram said. “I think I’m the same way.”

Haurchefant smiled. Of course he was. He would expect nothing else.

“Ishgard has ever been a divided country, where the wealthy prosper and the poor are left to feed off the scraps.” He thumbed the pommel of his blade, thinking of the Brume. Of the starvelings who wept while the lords and ladies of nobility grew fat off their underpaid labor. “I resolved to become a knight so I could protect everyone, noble and commoner alike. I never wanted to see anyone suffer like my mother did. Not again.”

Haurchefant felt a bit embarrassed, saying the words out loud. He didn’t often speak of his father and even less often did he speak of his mother. His memories were precious to him and he tried to protect them at all costs. But absolute honesty did a soul good, now and again. Bram’s morose expression had softened, and in its place Haurchefant saw only quiet reflection.

“That’s a noble goal,” Bram nodded. “I imagine many of your knights look up to you.”

“I seek only to be the leader they deserve,” Haurchefant said. His lips quirked slightly, thinking of a young knight who’d once admitted his admiration openly. Haurchefant hadn’t forgotten his words, even years later. “Their loyalty is but a pleasant bonus.”

Haurchefant watched as Bram shivered a bit where he sat, skin grown pale with cold. Though he seemed unphased by the temperatures, it was unwise to remain outside at night. He slipped off the rampart. Snow crunched softly beneath his feet.

“But perhaps we should head inside,” he said, offering Bram a steadying hand. The man took it, gripping Haurchefant’s palm as he found his footing on the slick stone of the battlements. “The frigid outdoors can offer only so much comfort. I much prefer a warm hearth and steaming mug of tea.”

Bram laughed, and his smile, this time at least, was genuine. “Aye. That sounds nice.”

As they made their way into the tower where their quarters’ lay, Bram stopped for a moment and turned around, facing Haurchefant in the dim torchlight. “Thank you for lending an ear. It was nice to speak of home.”

“Any time, my friend,” Haurchefant swore. “You need but ask.”


End file.
